The Problem: Editing Wikipedia is difficult - we need to make it easier as just part of encourating more people to edit generally.
The Approach: Surface the biggest challenges that Wikipedia users face when making their first edit while identifying the best practices of seasoned editors. Make changes (read: the grant did not allow enough time and resources to overhaul into a WYSIWYG editor) to measurably reduce these barriers and increase participants and edits to Wikipedia.
The Insights: "Wiki Syntax" looks and feels like coding, not writing an essay or publishing a blog post; people used multiple tabs and windows and other hacky tricks to see the editor and article simultaneously; all editors had the perception that there is a "right way" and "wrong way" to make an edit or format; editing Wikipedia make people feel stupid and overwhelmed; what people see when they are typing and editing does not lead to what they expect to get when they preview or save their edits; Wikipedia is cluttered.
Action: Removed all extra toolbar elements to create a simpler version with the most commonly used formatting tool (Headings, Bold, Italic, Links, Insert) while maintaining easy access to advanced tools which were more commonly completed manually; included a "cheat sheet" of basic Wiki syntax; introduced tabbed navigation that allowed people to switch between the article and editor without having to open many new windows; dialogs that alerted users of editing errors; enhanced preview; navigation within the editor of long articles to include a table of contents; new search; new skin that got rid of as much clutter as we could.